A good pick for kindergarten and preschool graduation gifts and other such early-childhood events.
An extended hip-hip-hooray in book form.
The opening double-page spread shows a bewildered, anthropomorphic penguin walking into a room bedecked with streamers and balloons as confetti flies about. A bevy of animals on the facing page leaps up with a cheer. “Yippee” reads a banner held in an owl’s beak, while a pair of penguins (the protagonist’s family?), a polar bear, a fox, and a deer join in the celebration. The “you” in the title and in text throughout the book clearly addresses this protagonist penguin, but it encompasses the reader, too: “On this special occasion, / we’re just so filled with pride, / and we’re thrilled, and we’re grateful, / to be on your side!” Bouncy, rhyming text and playful, expressive, digitally enhanced multimedia illustrations make plain the joy the group feels, but the celebrated event remains ambiguous. Furthermore, the order of the illustrations doesn’t really matter, since neither words nor pictures provide a narrative for the reader to latch onto. Although a presumed flashback begins with the penguin’s hatching and both text and illustrations periodically depict the penguin’s growth, the vignettes depicted in between are cute but feel arbitrary. The result is a book that feels more like an expanded greeting card than it does a picture book.
A good pick for kindergarten and preschool graduation gifts and other such early-childhood events. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256402-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The combination of lovingly humorous and detailed mixed-media illustrations and infectious rhymes will cause little ones and...
More than skin deep, this rhyming paean to diversity offers readers an array of families of all colors and orientations, living and loving one another in a vibrant city setting.
A giggling baby is tummy-tickled by her white and black mothers (or white mother and black father—impressively, the illustration leaves room for interpretation) in New York’s Central Park in its summertime glory. "This is how we all begin: / small and happy in our skin." This celebration of skin not only extols the beauty and value of various skin colors, but also teaches the importance of skin as an essential body part: “It keeps the outsides out / and your insides in.” Park, public-pool, and block-party scenes allow readers to luxuriate in a teeming city where children of all colors, abilities, and religions enjoy their families and neighbors. The author and illustrator do not simply take a rote, tokenistic approach to answering the cry for diverse books; the words and pictures depict a much-needed, realistic representation of the statement “it takes a village to raise a child” when a child skins her knee and many rush to her aid and comfort. Though her palette of browns is a little limited, Tobia creates sheer joy with her depictions of everything from unibrows, dimples, and birthmarks to callouts to recognizable literary characters.
The combination of lovingly humorous and detailed mixed-media illustrations and infectious rhymes will cause little ones and their families to pore over this book again and again. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7002-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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